Counter culture talk courtesy of a Catholic convert.
The West crumbles but, as usual, God’s got a fix.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Life Chain 2013 St. John's, NL

[Info supplied on YouTube video above:

LifeChain,
an annual prayerful and silent public witness to life, was held October 6 at
2:30 PM in St. John's, NL, in front of the abortuary at 202 LeMarchant Road.
Video supplied by Corina @Ash2Life. The video indicates a cold wet day, few
pro-life witnesses by comparison to previous years, and a noisy group of
disrespectful pro-abortion advocates.]

In the US, the first Sunday in October is regarded as Respect
Life Sunday by the American Bishops. Canadian Bishops have no such day designated
in October. Life Chain is scheduled
on the same day as Respect Life Sunday and many
dioceses organize to take full advantage of the Life Chain impact on
pro-life awareness.

Life Chain founder
Royce Dunn recently wrote the following in his Press
Release for this year’s Life Chain
event:

Life Chain is devoted foremost to prayer, but wise participants understand
that prayer to end abortion is not of great value before God unless accompanied
by love that will battle legal child killing and defend forsaken Preborns
committedly.

Pro-life’s two leading stories in 2013, Life Chain’s 26th year, are
unchanged in America and Canada:

Abortions remain numerous, and
the church remains bound by deception and apathy. All the while God mercifully waits. He waits to work through His sons
and daughters to end the unspeakable horror, but the ears of His church do not
hear and the eyes of His church do not see. The result is a church imprinted by
shame and a calamity much larger than the German Holocaust. While 56 million chiefly
surgical abortions have been reported in America and 3 million in Canada, the
actual numbers are much higher, and hidden deaths from the abortive chemicals
in birth controls may exceed the surgical deaths.

Mr. Dunn knows well what it will take to end legalized
abortion and frames the challenge as one of prayer “accompanied by love that
will battle legal child killing and defend forsaken Preborns committedly.” He
knows also that God waits for His children to rise up from a Church bound by
deception and apathy and put an end to “the unspeakable horror.”

You can read the outline of the Life Chain Principles (pdf) and see that Life Chain is a peaceful and prayerful public witness of pro-life
individuals standing and praying for our nation and for an end to abortion. It
is a visual statement of solidarity by the Christian community that abortion
kills children and that the Church supports the sanctity of human life from the
moment of conception until natural death. Furthermore, the guidelines state:

Use only approved Life Chain signs. Half of them should be Abortion
Kills Children–Life Chain’s foremost life-saving message. Millions of our
fellow citizens support abortion, but very few of them support “killing” unborn
children. Do not use graphic signs. (They have purposeful uses, but Life Chain
strives to move reluctant Christians from the pews to the sidewalks, and they
are not ready for graphic signs.)

Can you possibly imagine any good reason that a Christian
group or Church community would purposefully ignore, let alone marginalize,
such a hugely successful international pro-life event? Don’t you imagine that
every Church group that claimed the label of “Pro-life” would be anxious to
publicize and support such a visible, powerful expression of solidarity with
unborn children—and no controversial, graphic pictures allowed? Granted, some
Protestant assemblies don’t self-identify as “pro-life” but think of the
pro-life conscience of Catholic Church parishioners alone in our local area,
with 40 parishes and approximately
110,000 Catholics. Certainly, one imagines the Archdiocese of St. John’s
undertook a serious effort to organize for and participate in such an endeavour
in order to raise the awareness of the plight of unborn children in Canada, and
even more particularly, of the unborn children of NL being killed at the
abortuary on LeMarchant Rd., precisely where the Life Chain event was being scheduled.

Yet, in the announcements
page—the official communicator for all approved events—of the Archdiocesan
website, on October 5, 2013, not a word was to be found about the Life Chain event. The Archdiocese
instead chose to highlight a different event taking place on Sunday the 6th.
Here is the text of the announcement:

Respect Life Sunday October 6th is observed in Canada and the U.S.as a daythat acknowledges the precious gift of human life from conception to
natural death. The following churches have offered these times for prayer and
reflection on October 6th.Salvation Army
St. John's West Corps on Mundy Pond Road 2pm-4pm, Mary Queen of the World
Topsail Road- Holy Hour with Exposition 3:30pm - 4:30pm.

Respect Life Sunday - The Centre for Life gratefully acknowledges the
support of Archbishop Martin Currie and the Archdiocese with a collection on
Oct. 6th. Your donation will enable the Centre for Life to continue to offer a
compassionate presence in our community with our educational and supportive
outreach.

Other announcements included a number of video series (some
Catholic, some secular), a Development and
Peace workshop, a new initiative for Multicultural Christians, a Christian
Youth Conference, upcoming sessions on T’ai Chi Chih and Chow Qigong, but
nothing about the Life Chain event.

So once
again, we see the Archdiocese, and, by implication, the Archbishop, marginalizing
the hi-impact, visual pro-life presence in the community by fostering only the
prayerful, reflective side of the battle. As important as that aspect is, I agree
wholeheartedly with the words of Mr. Royce Dunn, as stated above,

Life Chain is devoted foremost to prayer, but wise participants
understand that prayer to end abortion is not of great value before God unless
accompanied by love that will battle legal child killing and defend forsaken
Preborns committedly.

Rather than work for unity in the pro-life cause in NL and
support also the bold initiatives to defend the Unborn, or condemn abortion, or
advocate for an end to abortion, we see the Archbishop putting his weight
behind only the “private” affairs, away from the glare of lights and cameras…and
the public’s view. Unsurprisingly then, his priests follow cue, speaking the “A”
word only in private
setting stuff at parishes; rarely, if ever, in homilies, prayers or
announcements.

Sad to say, and with deadly consequences for one-third of
our unborn children, my fears
about Archbishop Martin Currie are coming to pass:

Alcock claims the rarity of pro-life appeals in parishes along with
“virtual silence on the subject of abortion in homilies and prayers at Masses
throughout the province insulates Catholics from any reminders of the
child-killing taking place around them. It also serves to marginalize advocates
of unborn children and distances them from the Christian community, portraying
them as extremists.”